Over the last months, within the context of a complicated political scenario due to the economic crisis and the nationalist tensions, voices insisting on the need for constitutional reform are being intensively raised in Spain. Without questioning such a need, it may nonetheless be useful to reflect on the difficulties that such an enterprise would entail at the present date- May 2014.

Nepal and Spain are separated by more than 8,000 km and they have very different societies and cultures (although I think that the origin of the Spanish flamenco is not so far from Kathmandu). However, Nepal has taken a decision similar to that of Spain almost 40 years ago: to change the unitary State into a federal one. For this reason, I think the Spanish experience maybe useful in Nepal’s present constitutional debate. I will summarize this experience in five ideas that can be applied to Nepal, without committing to many mistakes due to my limited knowledge of the reality of the Himalayan country.